{"id":17177,"date":"2023-09-15T16:40:53","date_gmt":"2023-09-15T11:10:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/current_affairs\/?p=17177"},"modified":"2023-09-15T16:40:56","modified_gmt":"2023-09-15T11:10:56","slug":"k2-18-b","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/current-affairs\/15-09-2023\/k2-18-b","title":{"rendered":"K2-18 b"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>Syllabus :GS 3\/Space&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">In News<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>NASA\u2019s<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/current-affairs\/24-08-2022\/james-webb-space-telescope\/#:~:text=About%3A,and%20our%20place%20in%20it.\"> James Webb Space Telescope <\/a>in its study of <strong>K2-18 b<\/strong> discovered the presence of carbon dioxide and methane.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">About K2-18 b<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>K2-18 b is a super Earth exoplanet that orbits an <strong>M-type star<\/strong>.&nbsp;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>It is <strong>120 light years<\/strong> from earth and orbits the cool dwarf star <strong>K2-18 a<\/strong>.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>It is<strong> 8.6 times<\/strong> as massive as Earth and the size lies that of between earth and Neptune.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Its discovery was announced in <strong>2015<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Discoveries\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>The observations of James Webb also provided a possible detection of a molecule called<strong> dimethyl sulfide (DMS)<\/strong>.\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>On Earth, DMS is only produced by life.\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>The bulk of the DMS in Earth\u2019s atmosphere is emitted from phytoplankton in marine environments.&nbsp;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Planet k2-18b is within the&nbsp; \u201chabitable zone\u201d of its star, that is conditions are just right \u2013 neither too hot nor too cold \u2013 for life to exist.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Webb\u2019s discovery adds to recent studies suggesting that K2-18 b could be a Hycean exoplanet, one which has the potential to possess a hydrogen-rich atmosphere and a water ocean-covered surface.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Future Outlook<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>NASA now intends to conduct follow-up research with the telescope&#8217;s MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument) spectrograph that they hope will further validate their findings and provide new insights into the environmental conditions on K2-18 b.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-table\"><table><tbody><tr><td><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong>What is an exoplanet?<\/strong><\/span><br><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><br><\/span>&#8211; An exoplanet is any planet beyond our solar system.<br>&#8211; All of the planets in our solar system orbit around the Sun. Planets that orbit around other stars are called exoplanets.<br>&#8211; Exoplanets are very hard to see directly with telescopes. They are hidden by the bright glare of the stars they orbit.<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/newsonair.gov.in\/News?title=Distant-Planet-may-have-Water-Ocean-and-Possibly-a-life%3a-NASA&amp;id=467680\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">News on air<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Syllabus :GS 3\/Space&nbsp; In News About K2-18 b Discoveries\u00a0 Future Outlook What is an exoplanet?&#8211; An exoplanet is any planet beyond our solar system.&#8211; All of the planets in our solar system orbit around the Sun. Planets that orbit around other stars are called exoplanets.&#8211; Exoplanets are very hard to see directly with telescopes. They [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17177","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-affairs"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17177","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17177"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17177\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17178,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17177\/revisions\/17178"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}